Ralph, a British schoolboy who is the boys’ chief until Jack weans them away and turns Ralph into their prey. Ralph is the chief spokesman for civilized values in the novel. It is Ralph who finds the conch shell that comes to symbolize order and Ralph who advocates building shelter and keeping a fire going. The son of a naval officer, Ralph is dedicated to duty and the hope of eventual rescue. For Ralph, keeping a fire going is almost an obsession, and it is ironic that the fire set at the end of the novel to drive him out of hiding attracts the ship that lands to rescue the boys. At times, however, Ralph is tempted by the allure of barbarism, a conflict apparent early in the novel when he encounters Piggy. First taunting Piggy, then regretting his behavior, he foreshadows his later hesitancy in asserting the values he initially represents. In fact, Ralph is toying with the idea of giving in and joining Jack’s band when he learns that Jack is planning to kill him.

Jack Merridew

Jack Merridew, another schoolboy, Ralph’s antagonist. Jack is a charismatic leader unable to accept a subservient role in the society created by the boys. He revels in the hunt and the power it confers on him, and he relishes the anarchy accorded the group by the absence of adult supervision. Jack uses fear, ritual, and violence to secure the blind obedience of the other boys. For Jack, superior strength and weaponry, not rules, agreements, and elections, confer leadership. Early in the novel, he lashes out at Piggy, breaking his glasses. It is as if he realizes that Piggy provides the intellectual foundation for Ralph’s leadership and that, without Piggy, Ralph would be malleable.

Piggy

Piggy, the intellectual of the group, an overweight, nearsighted, asthmatic boy. Piggy is an object of ridicule, suffering the group’s taunts and its contempt. He relies on Ralph for protection but also functions as Ralph’s adviser, refusing to let him forget that survival depends on rules and order. The breaking of Piggy’s spectacles—one lens at a time—symbolizes the breaking of the last link to civilized values, and Piggy’s death represents barbarism and evil triumphant. Moments before his death, Piggy seizes the conch (which, along with Piggy and his spectacles, is smashed by a boulder) and demands that the boys choose between rules and killing, between law and “breaking things up.”

Simon

Simon, a strange, introverted boy. Early on, Simon seems aware that something is amiss and withdraws to meditate in a secret hiding place. In a critical scene, he confronts the head of the pig (Jack’s offering to “the beast”) and struggles with the realization that civilization and its trappings are but a flimsy veil thrown over human depravity. Simon discovers the dead parachutist and returns to reveal the true identity of the beast, but he is killed by the frenzied, chanting hunters.

Sam

Sam and

Eric

Eric, twins whom the boys call “Samneric.” They are Ralph’s last followers, loyal to the end. Only when captured by Jack and his hunters and subjected to torture do they switch sides. Even then, they warn Ralph of the fate Jack has in mind for him. They are later forced to reveal Ralph’s hiding place.

Roger

Roger, one of Jack’s first followers. It is Roger who tips the boulder that crushes Piggy. Although the act itself is a product of a “delirious abandonment” born of the violence and excitement of the moment (Ralph and Jack fighting), it confers on Roger the status of executioner, a role he seems to accept and even relish.

The Complexity of Ralph's Character

As the boys’ chief, Ralph relies on logic in attempting to effect their rescue from the island. He understands the critical importance of keeping the signal fire burning, despite the hard work and self-discipline required to maintain it. Ralph represents the voice of reason in civilized society, and he is unable to understand the rejection of logical thinking by the other boys. Ralph’s character, however, is more complex than that of a sensible leader who knows how to think. He criticizes Jack Merridew’s obsession with killing pigs, but when Ralph confronts a wild boar and wounds it with a spear, he feels elated. On two other occasions, Ralph joins the boys in acts of violence, most significantly when Simon is murdered during a frenzy of dancing and chanting. For Ralph to succumb to savage behavior suggests that bloodlust lies at the heart of man’s nature, controlled but never eradicated by the constraints of civilized society. Even Ralph is not immune to the darkest impulses of humanity, nor is he immune to the instinct to survive. Hunted by the murderous Jack and his tribe, Ralph runs for his life, “screaming, snarling, bloody,” driven into an animal state by a biological imperative far more powerful than human intellect.

Ralph's Loss of Innocence

Witnessing Ralph’s efforts to effect the boys' rescue, it is easy to forget that he is a child, one of the older boys, a “bigun,” but a child nonetheless. When he first realizes the absence of adults on the island, Ralph’s response reflects the immaturity of childhood. “No grownups!” he declares with delight. As life on the island becomes more and more ominous, however, Ralph wants desperately the authority and protection of grownups. Ralph’s longing for the security he had known while living in a world of adults is reflected in the memories of home he revisits at night before falling asleep. Ralph’s initial relationship with Piggy further emphasizes Ralph’s immaturity. At first, like the other boys, Ralph treats Piggy with disrespect and rejects him as an equal. As he matures, Ralph grows to understand and rely on Piggy. He recognizes in Piggy a good mind, more capable of reason than his own, and a courageous spirit that defies injustice.

Ralph’s maturity and its tragic implications are evidenced in the novel’s ironic conclusion. Standing on the beach under the gaze of a naval officer from the ship that has come to the boys’ rescue, Ralph’s appearance is deceiving. The officer sees before him a sobbing child with a “filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose,” but in Ralphs’s tears lies the reality of what he has become. He weeps not as a child but as a soul now familiar with evil, its manifestations and its horrendous consequences. He weeps “for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.” Ralph suffers under the weight of metaphysical truth revealed, the knowledge of “mankind’s essential illness” imposed upon him by circumstances beyond his control and by events from which he will never be free.